Denver Starts on Top, but History Says the No. 1 Spot Is a Tough Place to Win From

The 2026-27 college hockey season opens October 2, and the first USCHO.com preseason poll is out. The reigning champs are No. 1, the Big Ten is stacked right behind them, and a few programs that have been gone for a while are back in the top 20.

Here’s what stands out.

Denver is the favorite, and that has usually been a problem

Denver beat Wisconsin for the national title in Las Vegas in April, and voters weren’t going to put anyone else first. The Pioneers got 35 of the 50 first-place votes and 973 points, a 58-point cushion over No. 2.

This is Denver’s sixth time as preseason No. 1, tying Boston College for the most since USCHO started preseason polls in 1996. The odd part is that Denver has never won a title in a year it started at No. 1. Its best finish from the top spot came in 2024-25, when it lost a double-overtime Frozen Four semifinal to Western Michigan, the eventual champion.

Preseason No. 1s in general haven’t done well either. Only two have finished as champions: Minnesota in 2002-03 and Minnesota Duluth in 2018-19. Repeating is just as rare. Denver was the last program to go back-to-back in 2004 and 2005, and only UMD has done it since.

On paper, this Denver team may be built to break that pattern. David Carle added a new blue line with four players taken in the top 64 picks of the NHL Draft, and Daxon Rudolph drives the offense from the back end. If goalie Johnny Hicks plays like he did last spring, the Pioneers will be very hard to beat in a single-elimination game.

The chase pack is loaded

• No. 2 Michigan (6 first-place votes) adds Landon DuPont, projected as a top pick in the NHL Draft, and brings back Michael Hage. The Wolverines haven’t won a title since 1998 and gave Denver everything it could handle last season.
• No. 3 Michigan State (7 first-place votes) got more first-place votes than the team ranked above it. The Spartans landed the most first-round freshmen in the country, including defensemen Chase Reid and Tommy Bleyl and power forwards Ethan Belchetz and Jack Hextall. The big question is freshman goalie Joshua Ravensbergen.
• No. 4 North Dakota (2 first-place votes) has maybe the best defense corps in the nation, with Keaton Verhoeff now paired with his World Juniors partner Carson Carels, plus Cole Reschny and Will Zellers up front.
• No. 5 Minnesota Duluth returns Hobey Baker winner Max Plante, who now has both brothers, Zam and Victor, in the lineup with him.

Keep an eye on No. 4

If you’re looking for a sleeper within the top five, history points to the No. 4 slot. Preseason No. 4 has produced six national champions since 1996, more than any other spot. North Dakota’s last two titles, in 2000 and 2016, both came in seasons when the Fighting Hawks started at No. 4.

The Hawks also have the longest active streak in the poll. This is their 31st straight preseason ranking, meaning they’ve been ranked in every preseason poll USCHO has ever published. Denver is second with 25 in a row.

Dartmouth is back

The biggest feel-good story in the poll is at No. 11. Dartmouth hasn’t been ranked in a USCHO preseason poll since 2006, and this ranking ties the best preseason spot in program history.

This didn’t come out of nowhere. Last season the Big Green reached the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1980 and finished No. 10 in the final poll. Head coach Reid Cashman has built something real in Hanover, and with Hayden Stavroff back for his junior year, don’t be surprised if Dartmouth plays spoiler in March.

Risers, fallers, and new faces

Seventeen of last season’s final top 20 made the preseason poll, but plenty moved around.

Moving up: Boston College jumped seven spots, from 19 to 12, with Dean Letourneau, Oscar Hemming and Teddy Stiga back. UMass climbed six spots into the top 10.

Moving down: Penn State took the biggest fall, from 11 to 17, after losing Gavin McKenna and JJ Wiebusch. National runner-up Wisconsin dropped from 2 to 6.

Holding steady: Denver (1), North Dakota (4) and Providence (9) are exactly where they finished last season.

Back in: Minnesota (14), Boston University (16) and Michigan Tech (19) join the poll.

Dropped out: Augustana, St. Thomas and Bentley. Augustana led the others-receiving-votes list with 70 points, so it isn’t far off.

Take it with a grain of salt

Preseason polls are educated guesses, and the record shows that. Since 1996, six national champions have come from outside the preseason top 10, including Western Michigan at No. 17 in 2024-25 and Yale, which wasn’t ranked at all in 2012-13. The top five does better: 13 of the last 29 champions started there.

So Denver is the team to beat. But if history holds, the team lifting the trophy in April may not be the one on top today.

The full 2026-27 USCHO preseason poll

Others receiving votes: Augustana 70, Ohio State 59, St. Thomas 50, Miami 49, Bowling Green 39, Colorado College 39, Bentley 24, Sacred Heart 17, Clarkson 12, Northeastern 11, Maine 9, Princeton 7, Harvard 6, Arizona State 5, Notre Dame 5, Brown 1, New Hampshire 1.